James Ripley

Class or 1964

B.A. in Political Science & M.A. in Journalism, both from The Ohio State University.

Mr. Ripley retired in 2009, yet served as chair of the Mesa Historical Society from 2010-2011. He led an initiative to recognize his church as a Mesa Historic Landmark. Prior to this, Mr. Ripley was a journalist from 1972-2009. 

Work experience began as a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer in Sierra Leone from 1969-1972 helping farmers increase rice yields by turning swamps into fields. He served as a political reporter for the Columbus Citizen-Journal covering John Glenn’s 1974 Senate race, traveling throughout thestate with Glenn and his wife. He was an Ohio statehouse reporter for Scripps-Howard News Service which included covering Ohio legislature for three Ohio newspapers, followed by being a state/national political reporter for Dayton Daily News. His first major assignment with the Daily News was covering the blizzard of 1977 by riding on an Army Reserves helicopter to Greenville, OH. Mr. Ripley covered the Rhodes/Celeste gubernatorial race and 1980 presidential primaries in New Hampshire, Illinois, and Ohio. 

He interviewed many prominent politicians including President Carter, Sen. Ted Kennedy, and covered debates between Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. From 1982-1992, Mr. Ripley was Assistant City Editor, City Editor & Metro Editor, serving nearly ten years in Dayton, OH. Mr. Ripley moved up to managing editor at the Mesa (AZ) Tribune until 2009. 

Some of Mr. Ripley’s accomplishments include his assignment as lead convention reporter and receiving two first place Ohio AP newspaper awards – one for investigative reporting and one for a series on Ohio prisons while in Dayton. By 2003, the Associated Press Managing Editors Association named Mr. Ripley’s paper, the East Valley Tribune, the best newspaper in the state. In 2009 when Mr. Ripley was the newspaper’s executive editor, a team of his reporters received a Pulitzer Prize for local reporting for a project done in 2008. Mr. Ripley had hired all members of the team as well as the project editor who directly supervised them.